A day in the life of Leona

Or: “The Schizophrenic Teacher

'(Report on my day of shadowing)

It is 8.50 in the morning. I step into the teachers’ room. I am quite excited and nervous as well: this is the first time in my life when I am spending a whole day on the “other side”.

Leona, my secondary school English teacher, who is kind enough to let me shadow her today, has not arrived yet. I meet some other former teachers of mine, and we chat a little bit about the exam period.

Leona arrives at 9.06. After greeting me she immediately starts apologising, and meanwhile she throws her coat on her chair, tries to find the coursebook needed for the first group, and greets the other teachers in the room. She seems to be quite tired, and her face reveals that she has a great deal of problems these days.

In three minutes we are in the classroom and facing a crowd of 20 people. Leona is now absolutely different: she is smiling and no student can notice the traces of her problems on her face. Her behaviour, however, does not seem to be affected, she acts as if she had a second personality beside the Private Leona. Another amazing thing is her patience: even when those troublesome boys keep chatting and a discman appears, Leona can keep calm. She tells them that she will collect the tasksheets at the end of the lesson to check everyone’s work – but finally she does not collect anything; that is why, I think, her threats are usually ineffective. My presence has no effect on them, either, in spite of the fact that I’m sitting right in front of them (Leona insists on placing me close to her). I am surprised: although I know one observer is not so embarrassing, still I am someone totally new and unknown to them.

We have a little break from 10.00 to 10.10 (as this is a double lesson), when Leona tells me some problems with the group. There are too many people, with mixed abilities – as I myself have noticed –, which makes teaching really hard. The strange thing is that there was an exam at the end of last school year to divide the students into appropriate groups – Leona suspects that some of the students were cheating, otherwise they could not get into this group. While she is speaking, I notice something more interesting: she has a third personality as well. I call it “Leona With Opinion” (WO) to distinguish it from “Leona the Pure Teacher” (PT), which I saw during the lesson. Leona WO is a teacher who does not hides her opinion about her students, the school, the state of Hungarian education in general – but students can never see Leona WO, only Leona PT; as I myself did when I was a secondary school student. When the students come back to the room she switches into Leona PT again.

In our first “real” break there is not a free moment. While we are running down to the teachers’ room, Leona WO gets a bit excited, because the next group, 1.d – as she says – is full of hardworking children, who Leona likes working with. When we reach her desk she starts making 1.d’s lessonplan in a rush, because she did not have the time for it at home. I think about those logical, well-structured lessonplans we had a look at on the methodology class, and I look around the room – what we did on campus seems now ridiculous; no one has time for making such preparations. Then Leona tries to find the right text on the tape – and we are already late.

The 1.d-group consists of 11 people, two of them are a bit passive (this may be my effect), but the others work hard and do not seem to be embarrassed. Leona PT is smiling a bit more than before – but maybe I just persuaded myself about this, as she has told me that she likes this group. Her improvised lessonplan does not really work: timing is a weak point of it, because Leona could not look through all the exercises to consider how much time they take; nevertheless I think that the 45 minutes is usefully spent.

In the next break (which is actually a “hole”, no class until 13.00) Leona the Private (PV) appears, she tells me some private problems of hers briefly. I am really surprised again: Leona is so perfect in hiding this personality that I have never met it before, although I was her student for years.

A little later she switches into Leona WO again, as she finds some compositions to look through. The next group we are going to see, 1.c, is – as she explains – a German bilingual one, and she admits that she gets a bit irritated when the students try to transfer typical German constructions into English, which I can see while she is correcting the compositions. Then she invents another lessonplan, and now she has enough time to think it over.

1.c is a really sweet group in my opinion, they are not just hardworking but they correct each other in a friendly way as well. They are active and have a great deal of questions. Some German mistakes come up, but Leona PT handles them calmly, there is no sign of irritation. The only time when she shows some kind of emotion is when two girls start to complain in a strange voice that they cannot see the board. Now Leona WO turns up for a moment to show a slightly angry look and utter a couple of firm words telling the girls to sit somewhere else, and then gives back the control to Leona PT.

The fourth break is quite calm. With the next group, 4.d, Leona wants to go on working on the tasksheet distributed last week, so all she has to do is provide me with information about this group. She is really nice to them: she lets them suspend learning English for a few weeks, as they have some serious exams, and they need each and every moment. She may notice that I do not really agree (though I do not say a word) because she adds immediately that there are only six people in the group anyway, the others have all passed the state language exam, which means that they do not have to attend the English lessons. Well, I still do not utter a word, but I am an enthusiastic beginner and I think that pauses like this are not really good. The amount of homework could be reduced, that could be help for the students; but I myself am a student and I know that the time of spared English lessons will not be used for learning, and at the same time a lot of things will be forgotten.

“Now we are not going to be late,” I think to myself gladly; but of course life is not so simple. At about 13.55 a student of 4.d appears to ask Leona about this lesson’s programme, and it turns out that he and some of his classmates do not have the tasksheet. So we have to rush into the secretary’s room to photocopy. The problem is that the photocopy machine is a very modern one, and neither Leona nor I know how to use it. The secretary can help us only a few minutes later since she is very busy. When we get out of the secretary’s it is already 14.03, and we are late again. It would have been easier to give this task to Margit néni, the woman who usually does the photocopying for all the teachers, but Leona did not want to, because she usually photocopies too much, and Margit néni has her remarks on this.

Stepping into the classroom we find two people there, and a few minutes later two more arrive. Leona does not seem to be irritated by the fact that some students come late – as far as I remember she never uttered a word about it when I was her student, either. This may be because she herself is almost always late; but anyway she is one of the most indulgent teachers I have ever met, with which she spares herself a great deal of nervousness, I guess; although in some cases she should be a bit more strict in my opinion, just to keep her authority. While Leona PT distributes the fresh tasksheets, a boy informs her that he and another boy would not like to take part in today’s work. Leona PT nods. She collects the three remaining persons (one more girl has arrived in the meanwhile). These three people are really willing to work at least. They are doing the well-known type of exercise, in which the task is to “guess” the tense of the bracketed verb; and as they are making suggestions I put a tick on my mental list of “Features of the good language learner” to the point of “willing to make mistakes and ready to learn from them”.

Secretly I glance at my watch: it is 14.28. I’m extremely tired, I feel that I cannot concentrate as well as I could in the morning, although I try, because Leona sometimes asks for my opinion about some constructions. I look at her. She does not seem to be tired at all, but I know that this is just Leona PT, and the other two personalities somewhere in the background feel absolutely different.

And I am right: as soon as we leave the classroom at about 14.48 Leona WO takes control and tells me how hard it is to teach grammar in the afternoon. A few minutes later Leona PV appears to refer to some private problem of hers when she says to me that maybe it was not the best idea for me to follow her, as she is too burdened these days, and maybe I should have chosen someone else (although in fact I am sure she is happy that I have chosen her). I assure her that this day’s experience is very useful for me, and in fact it really is; in addition, she does not know how good a model she is if one wants to learn to separate private life from work. Anyway, I do not believe that there are teachers without problems who can focus with all their energies on teaching; what I do believe is that there are ones who can hide their problems and ones who cannot, and Leona definitely falls to the first type. As for the fact that she did not hide her private side from me, I regard it as a sign of trust, which is an honour to me.

I put my notes in my bag and put on my extra pullover and coat. I look around the teachers’ room and say goodbye to everyone with the strange feeling of being somewhere between their student and colleague. Leona sees me to the door, and I thank her her help and this day in general.

I leave the school with mixed emotions: a kind of excitement because I can be the part of a world like this in a few years, a kind of amazement because of Leona’s personalities, a kind of disenchantment because of the state of Hungarian education (a great deal of good ideas cannot be put into practice “thanks to” lack of money). And I am very tired.

I think of Leona: she must be even more tired; in spite of this she cannot go home as she has a private student to teach in the afternoon.

I am a bit disillusioned; nevertheless, I am still an enthusiastic beginner, who wants to change the world.

How strange this is: today I was visiting lessons all day, and at the same time this day was a very important lesson for me.